


Crash and Take Flight

by Kayndred



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Alien High School, Alternate Universe - High School, Crushes, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Galra Keith (Voltron), Genius Katie, Good Bro Matt, Miscommunication, Romance, Strangers to Friends, Training Simulation, cute nerds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-02 14:45:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13320378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayndred/pseuds/Kayndred
Summary: Katie “Pidge“ Holt is a genius, on the fast track to joining the Galaxy Fleet as soon as she graduates from the Galaxy Garrison. Following in the family footsteps, Katie’s well aware of the teaching methods of the school, and knows what to expect when she enters her junior year: at last, an intellectual partner to attend classes and complete projects with. What she isn’t expecting is Keith Kogane, one of the handful of Galra attending the Garrison. Between almost blowing up their chemistry lab, accidental hand holding, and breaking flight simulators, Katie and Keith have a long way to go before they’re space ready.





	Crash and Take Flight

**Author's Note:**

> This is my Kidge piece for the Aphelion Zine! It's my first foray into Kidge and I'm really pleased with it, and I want to give a big shout out to the Aphelion team for giving me the opportunity to write it!

It’s been fifteen minutes since the time indicated in Katie’s email, the one sent to all juniors about their study partner assignments, and she hasn’t been able to stop pacing since it started.

“You’re going to wear a hole in the carpet,“ Matt complains from his flop on the couch, eyes tracking listlessly over his phone. The TV is running in the background—also Matt’s doing—but he’s not really paying attention.

Katie snorts, pushing a hand through her hair in agitation before binding it up and away from her neck. Her laptop sits innocently on the coffee table, her email inbox open and waiting.

“I very distinctly remember you being just as nervous, she throws back, but it’s half-hearted. Realistically she _knows_ that her choices are limited, not that she’s actually choosing, but still. The school attempts to match people based on their GPAs and their aptitude tests, and Katie’s proud to say that she’s in the top percentile of her class.

Still, all she can think about is how Matt’s junior partner Shiro became his best friend, about how they went on all sorts of adventures together, and how they’ll soon go to a joint college for space exploration and piloting. Matt has the golden standard for junior partner experiences in Katie’s mind, and she _so badly_ wants someone who will be just as fun and easy to get along with as Shiro.

She almost misses the soft _ping_ of her laptop because Matt turns up the volume on the TV when it happens. But the email loads and Katie lets out an excited screech, diving for her laptop with barely restrained excitement. It takes her a full minute to register what the words are actually saying beyond the _Congratulations!_ in the title.

“Congratulations, Student ID 1454348,“ she reads aloud, “you’ve reached that time in your education … blah blah blah partner experiences … year long … same classes … _holy shit!_ “ She gasps, blinking and then squinting to make sure she’s reading right. “Wait…”

From the couch Matt blinks dazedly, brain not fully functioning at eight in the morning. Katie looks perturbed, brows furrowed and nose scrunched up. He knows that if he waits long enough she’ll just come out and ask, even if neither of them knows the answer.

He isn’t disappointed.

“Is Keith Kogane even in my year?”

x

Keith Kogane is, in fact, in her year. A transfer from another school along with five other students, Keith is one of the only Galra juniors in her division.

“Piloting and engineering? Really?“ Katie asks on the drive to school, frowning at her PADD in confusion. “Is he trying to be an overachiever?”

“This coming from Ms. Triple Science and Mechanics,“ Matt throws out offhandedly as they pull up to the curb. “Now stop being a big wuss and go meet your study buddy.“ He winks at her, smiling like the moderately benevolent older sibling that he is. “He’s not smarter than you. Probably.”

Katie gasps in mock offense. “Rude!“ she says, and leaves Matt to his inane cackling. There is, after all, no time like the present, and she has to find the room where all the junior year cadets are meeting their partners.

She arrives early, but she’s not the only one. A handful of other students cluster around the desks that have been provided, but none of them look Galra, and a picture of Keith hadn’t been included in the email.

It’s another fifteen minutes before the rest of the group trickles in, and then a half hour of Iverson talking about the importance of the junior partnership project and how they want this to go as smoothly as possible for everyone. There’s paperwork for filing for a new partner, of course, and paperwork to request a solo junior experience, and paperwork requesting one of the senior partner elects to replace a junior partner or be a junior partner team leader.

It all sounds like different kinds of cop-outs to Katie, who vows to herself that even if Keith Kogane _is_ a huge dick, she won’t file for “partner divorce”, as Matt had called it. After all, if Kogane was really terrible, why would she want to give that to someone else? Katie was the one who’d been paired with him because the faculty had thought they’d be a good unit. Anyone else wouldn’t be equipped to handle him.

That resolve gets her through the last fifteen minutes of Iverson’s speech, and then all the students are being told to stand to walk around and find their partner, like some awkward kind of Easter egg hunt.

Needless to say that when Katie _does_ find Keith Kogane, he’s not at all what she was expecting.

She sees the back of him first. He’s shorter than she is, or they’re the same height and he just _looks_ short, but Katie at sixteen isn’t exactly tall, and neither is he. He’s got long, pointed ears with little ridges of fur that run up the back and tuft at the tip, which reminds her a little of a cat right then.

“Keith Kogane?“ she asks, because he’s the third vaguely alien looking boy in the class that she’s asked and she’s not sure if she wants to be wrong again. His pale violet ears twitch before he turns around, and oh, it’s not just his ears that are alien. He’s got stripes that come in toward his eyes, and those are pastel purple too, as well as the whole of his neck and the underside of his jaw. There’s even a thin stripe that comes up his chin and through his lip, making him look a little like he’s got predator mandibles, and Katie can’t help the huge grin that blooms across her face at that idea.

His eyes, yellow on yellow with only the faintest outline around his iris, widen, and then flicker over her, one brow ticked up. “Katie Holt?“ he asks in return, the vowels all funky, making it sound more like “Kee-tee Hult”.

“The one and only,“ she replies, thrusting a hand out toward him. He looks at it, confused, and then reaches out to shake. His palm is hot, the back of his hand the same color as his neck, and there are calluses all up his fingers, with little claw-tips at the end of his nails.

 _Toe-beans_ , Katie thinks with excitement, and gives him a good, enthusiastic shake that Keith just sort of lets happen; arm all noodly at his side. He stares at her for a good minute after, but a smile eventually pulls one corner of his mouth up.

“I am very glad you’re my partner,“ he says, and honestly? Katie can’t say she isn’t excited either.

“Tell me about your course concentration so far,“ she says instead, and Keith nods, face serious, and yeah. Katie thinks they’re going to be great.

x

Maybe great was a little bit of an overstatement, Katie thinks two weeks later, sitting outside the principal’s office. Her nose is full of the smell of burnt synthetic fibers from her and Keith’s lab coats, along with the faint tinge of melted plastic.

 _That’s probably the glasses_. At least she hopes it’s their protective glasses and not something else.

Keith, sitting rigidly beside her, hasn’t said a word since they ended the yelling match that had ensued _after_ they’d almost blown up the science lab. He’d been furious, his hair fluffing and his ears angled back, arguing that _If you’d just let me lead we would have been fine! Did you even read the instructions? Just because you want to be better than me doesn’t mean you need to try and kill me!_

She’d been pissed at the time, and had yelled back, _I was doing it perfectly before you decided you knew better than the textbook! Of course I read the instructions, I’m not Mr. ‘My Intuition Will Guide Us Through the Sim’! And believe me, if I wanted you dead_ **_you’d be dead!_ **

That… probably wasn’t the best thing to say.

Their parents had been called—or in Katie’s case, Matt had been called; her parents were out on the conference circuit—and she and Keith had been put outside while Principal Ahn detailed the event and their subsequent academic punishments.

She really didn’t know where he got off accusing her of not reading the material. In the two weeks they’d been partnered Katie had come to find that not only was Keith short on words seventy-five percent of the time, he was also short on listening to other people’s opinions if he’d had success with one particular way of doing things before. He _did_ fly their simulators on eyeballed measurements and gut feelings, but—and Katie _hated_ to admit it—he was good at it. Really good.

And yeah, maybe she’d been getting a little jealous that she wasn’t exactly spectacular in all of his classes, but he didn’t seem to need as much help in the ones she considered “hers”.

That didn’t mean she hadn’t read the directions though! She totally had!

“I’m sorry,“ Keith mumbles, breaking her out of her mental tirade. When she looks at him he’s looking down at his hands, ears drooping, purple hair considerably more relaxed than it had been a half hour ago. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you after—after...“ His hands clench in his lap, and when he turns to look at her his big yellow eyes are sad and pleading.

“You scared me, okay?“ It comes out in a rush. “You could have been hurt.”

Any snappy remark Katie had ready, and maybe rehearsed a little, flies out of her head at the idea that she’d _scared_ Keith. Really? But he was always flying with abandon, and knew how to use a welder just as handily as she did. Their classes were dangerous, sure, but Katie had never really considered herself  _in_ danger.

Keith turns away from her when it becomes apparent that she doesn’t have anything to say, feet shuffling awkwardly, and she looks down at them to track the motion. Keith’s gloves are on the floor, mangled and blackened from something, but Katie’s gloves are blue, why are they—?

And she remembers then, the explosion, or right before, really—she’d been putting their chemicals together for the final reaction, distracted because Keith was hovering _just beyond_ where she would be able to complain about him being too close, but still hovering; and she’d turned to look at him at the same time as she’d flipped the spoon, dropping the powder into the liquid. Keith had yelled, angrily she’d thought at the time, and grabbed her by the shoulder—Katie had been pissed off, jerked out of his grip and stumbled away, and then there was a light and fire just as the sprinklers came on to douse everyone. Katie had yelled at him, right then, _What the fuck, Kogane?!_

And he’d yelled back, and then they’d been here.

Katie hadn’t seen fear in his eyes then, but maybe it was because he didn’t want her to—or because she didn’t want to, whatever—but the only way Keith’s gloves could have gotten mangled was if he tried to cover the beaker with his hands before it had gone off.

 _Fuck_ , she thinks, staring down at her own unmarred gloves. She’d thrown her arm up to protect her face, but Keith had tried to smother the fire with his hands before it could get to anyone.

Before it could get to her.

“Keith, I—“ she starts, turning back to talk to him, but the principal’s door swings open then, and Matt comes out, followed by two tall Galra, one of whom holds out a hand to Keith. He rises immediately and walks over, grabbing the Galra’s hand, but the adult turns Keith’s palm over, eyes narrowing and mouth pulling down at whatever he sees.

“Antok,“ the shorter one says, and Katie can’t tell where his hair ends and his ears begin. “At home, please.”

“Wait,“ says, Keith, who turns and, executing a regulation perfect bow, says, “I’m sorry for endangering your sibling, Officer Holt. I will be sure to take better precautionary measures in the future, to negate such occurrences.“ Then he straightens, shrugs out of his lab coat and his glasses, and starts walking. His parents follow, and Katie hates that he doesn’t look back.

It’s Matt’s sigh that breaks her out of her staring contest with the door that closes behind her partner and his family; and his hand, when it rests on her shoulder, is gentle and firm.

“Let’s go home, squirt. The school isn’t reprimanding you today since you’re both model students, but you’ve got a paper to write on fire safety that isn’t going to start itself.”

That’s less than she expected, honestly, considering the damage to the lab and the equipment, but she’s not going to argue with Matt. Whatever happened in the principal’s office has put a curious, contemplative frown on his face, and it lasts the whole drive home and through most of dinner.

Katie wonders if he’s thinking about Keith and his family too. Or maybe she’s just projecting.

x

After the Fire Incident, Katie takes to watching Keith a lot more closely than she had before, and it’s a little surprising to realize how much she has been missing.

Keith isn’t really studious in the traditional sense. He reads and reads and reads, sure, but rarely for whatever they’re studying in their actual classes. He reads enough to know what he has to know to pass tests, essentially. And that’s fine, not everyone likes knowing the textbook front to back like Katie does. The problem is that they _both_ read whatever they can get their hands on about the things they call their hobbies. Keith, ironically, knows the world’s most useless facts about cacti, because _knowing everything there is to know about plant life on Earth means I’ll be able to know more readily what does and doesn’t apply to plant life on other planets, Katie._

Another point they have in common: their response to authority preventing them from doing the things they want to do. Which for Katie means hacking into the computers, but for Keith it means sneaking into professor’s offices and digging around the old-fashioned way.

Keith _likes_ fire, despite that first mishap in the labs. He likes making things explode; Katie likes the science behind the explosions.

They have enough in common to be friends, Katie thinks. So why is it so hard to extend an olive branch to him?

After the Fire Incident—and a tentative email from Katie apologizing for her part, which Keith had replied to promptly, saying that it was fine because part of it was _his fault_ —they’d settled into a relatively routine system. They alternated studying at each other’s houses after school and gave each other detailed notes if things pulled them from class; like Keith’s trip to get his wisdom teeth removed and Katie’s irregular trips to the optometrist’s whenever she happened to crack her glasses. They helped each other without reserve.

But there was a strange wall of over-politeness that stood between them. No matter how often they interacted, they never treated each other like they were more than acquaintances. It was little things, things that people would normally remember and apply to situations where potential friends were involved. When not talking about their projects and homework, their conversations consisted of things like _What do you like for study snacks?_ and _Tea, soda, or water?_

 _Chips_ , Keith would reply, wearing the same bland face every time. _Soda, please_ , Katie would say, for the twelfth time.

Katie didn’t know how to break past something that neither of them knew how to navigate.

“Have you tried apologizing in person?“ Matt asks, sprawled on his stomach in front of the TV. Katie, flops onto the couch and grunts in dissent.

“Maybe try that, then,“ he suggests. “I mean, if you really want to be friends with him. It’s not actually a requirement—plenty of junior and senior student pairs lose contact with each other once their year is done.”

Katie knew that, but she hadn’t thought it would apply to _her_ , not really. Matt’s partner, Shiro, had gone on to the advanced pilot program at the Garrison Orbital Station, but he still came by for holidays and birthdays and whenever he had planetary leave.

That was what Katie wanted: the kind of friendship that lasted despite the hardships of distance and different career paths. Maybe it had been a little selfish of her to think that the hurdles of making friends would have been taken care of by the junior partnering system, and that everything would have fallen into place simply through proximity.

The problem, she figured, had to do with her own lack of experience. Katie hadn’t ever had to  _make_ friends, not really. She’d been socializing with the people who sat next to her for years, and had been pulled into their friend group over time. Katie knew, though, that she probably wouldn’t have the friends that she did if they hadn’t been arranged alphabetically since they’d entered the academy.

This definitely wasn’t the kind of mental exertion she’d been anticipating when she’d considered what her junior year was going to be like.

x

In theory, Katie knows that there are no “perfect times”. It’s not like in the movies, where they find each other in the chaos of a school assembly and confess their issues, or another incident with chemicals happens and Katie gets to protect Keith, at the same time affirming that she wants to be his friend. Katie is going to have to _make_ time, and that, if anything, is the most awkward part. Katie is _shit_ at reading the room sometimes, and it doesn’t help that Keith has expert cactus imitation skills when he wants to.

So Katie has to weigh the situation accordingly, even though it feels like throwing a dart in the dark. There are too many outcomes to be  _certain_ , so many ways to misstep and drive the wedge between them even deeper.

They’re in the library almost a month after the initial email when Katie decides to buck up and just get it over with. She’s got a steadily growing stack of books in her hands, letting Keith work through their lists for the month’s assignments, and the sturdy, dusty spines feel a little bit like a shield.

“Hey, Keith?“ God, her voice is so wobbly. She swallows, hoping Keith didn’t notice.

If he did, he was good at hiding it, his eyes scanning the list and then the titles on the shelves to their left, frowning a little. She can see him mouth the title a couple of times before he replies, “Yes…?“ ears flicking toward her and then back.

 _Just say it, just get it out, just go, go go!_ She swallows again, takes a breath, and blurts out, “I’m sorry about your hand!”

Keith jerks, turning to look at her, mouth slightly open and ears swiveled forward so far Katie thinks he might strain them. The first noise out of him is, ironically, a sharp “ _shhh!_ ”, before he continues on in a slightly pitchy voice.

“What—what are you talking about?!“ he exclaims, a question without the inflection. His voice is flat, a little lost, and his eyes are wide in the shadow of his bangs.

“I mean I’m sorry,“ Katie whispers, fighting to control her volume. She shuffles forward so Keith can hear her better, not wanting to draw the attention of the librarians or their assistants. “I’m sorry that I yelled at you, I’m sorry I wasn’t giving the experiment instructions as much attention as they deserved. I know you weren’t being a dick on purpose.“

Keith’s ears angle to the side and then forward again, and Katie can see it when he bites the inside of his lip.

“I’m sorry, too,“ he whispers back, ducking his head slightly before straightening again, looking her dead in the eye. “If I hadn’t been antagonistic about the instructions—if I’d explained myself better—we wouldn’t have ended up yelling.”

His voice is thick with emotion and Katie—she can’t look at him directly anymore. His gaze is too raw, too open, and she looks down at his hands instead, at the hand that had been burnt. He’d worn gauze for a couple of days after, but apparently Galra healed faster than humans did, because there weren’t any marks that she could see.

“I… I was jealous,“ she admits, shuffling a little. The books, moments ago a shield from his potential reactions, suddenly seem awkward in her hands—too bulky, pinning her to the floor. “I was jealous that you were doing so well in all our classes, and that I wasn’t, and it didn’t seem like you really needed my help at all, and I thought that was what we were supposed to _do_ , you know, help each other with things, but I just feel like a dead weight and that’s not fair to you at all, and for a second I thought of submi—”

“ _No!_ “ Keith’s shout startles her out of her rant, forcing her to take a deep breath in. He casts a few quick, furtive glances around to make sure they aren’t attracting any unwanted attention before he takes the books from her hands and puts them on the floor. When he grabs both her hands with his she’s startled by how warm his palms are, how rough the pads of his fingers are. The tips of his claws, retracted now, barely brush her skin, and it hits her: since their initial handshake, Katie hasn’t really touched Keith. When they’re in the labs they wear gloves, and the flight sim has special gauntlets reminiscent of the delicate hand controls they’ll use when actually in their ships. And Keith just _doesn’t_ touch people, or at least not a lot of people.

Not _Katie_.

“Don’t submit the paperwork for a partner change,“ Keith hisses, leaning in, voice low like he wants to make up for his previous outburst. “You have no reason to be jealous, _ever_ —you’re a genius, Katie Holt, and you make me want to be the best I can be.”

It’s probably the most impassioned Katie’s ever seen Keith, and she has seen him ace flight sims and break school records at _least_ twice. It’s definitely not what she was expecting, and the longer his hands stay clasped around hers the hotter she can feel her cheeks, neck, and ears getting. Keith doesn’t let go, however, and stares her down, searching for something in her eyes.

“Don’t change partners, please,“ he whispers, and Katie’s mouth goes dry. There’s a tickling feeling in her chest, like a dozen moths, and she’s suddenly aware of exactly how fast her heart is beating and how damp her palms feel.

“I won’t,“ she says, her fumbling cotton tongue making the words quieter than she’d planned. “I won’t, I wasn’t going to.”

Keith gives a small, joyous smile and beams at her, his hands briefly squeezing hers. It takes him a moment to come back to himself, to realize how close they are and how he’s holding her hands, but when he does he releases her like a startled cat and takes a step back, hair puffing up in surprise.

“Sorry, sorry,“ he mutters, patting at the tips of her fingers before realizing how strange _that_ is and ducking his head, ears quivering every which way. He squats down to retrieve the books, and Katie takes that brief window to take a deep breath and steady herself. It feels like she’s breathing for the first time after being submerged, and she has to work spit back into her mouth so that her tongue stops feeling like cotton.

She barely has enough time to center herself before Keith is standing back up, the stack of books in his arms with the list on top.

“Trade places?“ he asks, tilting his head. His smile is friendly, if a little shaky, and he doesn’t quite meet her eyes, but Katie doesn’t mind so much.

“Mmhmm, sure, no problem, sure,“ she says, nodding too much while she swipes the list. Keith moves to stand to her left so they can continue moving in the same direction they’d been going, and Katie takes another moment to compose herself. When she closes her eyes, all she can see is the determined, pleading look on Keith’s face, followed by the delight that had blossomed in his eyes when she told him she didn’t actually plan on asking for a new junior partner.

Her chest gives an uncomfortable thump, like the moths have turned into one big moth, its wings trapped inside her; but she doesn’t have any time to dwell on it. Keith asks which book they have to get next, and Katie makes herself move forward, eyes scanning the titles even as her mind races.

x

After that, the strangest things start to catch Katie’s attention, and she’s not even sure _why_. She’s pretty sure that the things she’s noticing have always been there, that Keith hasn’t suddenly developed a cadre of new habits in the relatively short time she was stuck thinking about how to mend their potential friendship.

It starts small. For example, Keith clicks his claws.

Not loudly or anything; Katie’s not even sure if he makes an audible sound when he does it, but she _sees_ him do it—little taps against the table, or one nail flicking against another. There’s not any rhyme or reason to it, or at least Katie doesn’t think there is, until she catches him tapping out the rhythm to one of the top forty radio songs that Katie only knows because of Matt.

 _Cute_ , is her first thought, followed by, _what other music does he like?_ , and then — _Cute?!_ in a voice that sounds very much like Shiro when he’s a nano-second away from exploding from exasperated frustration.

Her face and hands had gone all hot, and a flash of Keith’s face in the library had popped to the front of her mind. Not that Katie knew _why_ or anything, but it made her extra embarrassed on top of noticing her partner’s nail quirks.

Unfortunately for Katie’s blood pressure and easily flushed face, her observations didn’t end there. With their weird civility wall no longer stunting their conversations, the longer Keith spent time around her, the more she found herself falling into an easy camaraderie with him. Keith was sassy, usually blunt but with a tongue and a wit sharp enough to dish out some truly cutting remarks whenever someone got on his nerves. He kept up with Katie’s banter, no matter how juvenile or dirty it got, even if he did try to encourage a high brow sort of lewdness in their jokes. He was, all at once, a very well read and diligent Garrison student, and a dirty-minded seventeen-year-old boy.

A seventeen-year-old boy with habits like rubbing the soft skin of his ears between his fingers when he thinks, or scrunching up his nose when he’s debating a particularly difficult problem or what next dirty remark to make. He has even, on occasion, stuck his tongue out just a little bit while concentrating on homework, and every time Katie thinks she’s a moment away from a heart attack.

She doesn’t have the will to let him _know_ about these things that she notices, like the way she can sometimes see the short bob of his tail when he has to stretch to grab a book off a high shelf, or how the fur on his stomach is slightly lighter than the rest of him. Keith is, she realizes, rapidly outstriping her in the height department, and every inch Keith grows is another year off her life. They had been the same height at the start of the year, but five months in and at the beginning of the winter holiday Katie is a full six inches shorter than him and _hating it_.

“I just wish I wasn’t going through uniforms so fast,“ he complains one night at her house, stretching back against the couch. Katie can see the ridge of fur that runs down his torso and to his belly button, and she frowns furiously as she looks away. “My dads are sure I should stop growing soon, but it’s not looking like it.”

Katie, who’s been roughly the same height since middle school (barring two very brief growth spurts a year ago), grumbles about the unfairness of genetics. Keith sticks his tongue out at her and goes back to their trig homework. It’s _probably_ not his fault that Katie gets distracted by the delicate way he holds his pen— _his claws need to be trimmed, that’s all_ , she thinks, scribbling at her problem set. _He does not have pretty hands. He_ **_does not!_ **

x

“First semester is over!“ Katie shouts, jumping up in excitement. They’d just turned in their last project of the semester, and all that lay before them was winter break and the holidays, weeks of sleeping in, eating junk food and playing video games. At least, those were Katie’s plans.

“Ugh,“ Keith groans, scrubbing a hand over his face. They weave through the crowds of their classmates as they head toward the front of the school, eager to be away. Keith’s dads, apparently, had planned a trip for them back to the Galra continent for the end of the year, meaning Keith got to deal with _ugly sweaters and family members I haven’t seen in almost a decade_. From what Katie understood there was some kind of tiff between Thace, Antok, and some prominent member of their family, which had driven them off the continent and into Katie’s neighborhood. Apparently, they were finally trying to mend their fences, which meant Keith would be gone for the whole month of winter holidays.

“I’m sorry you can’t stay,“ she says, patting Keith’s arm. She’d extended an offer to one of her guest rooms when she’d found out how little Keith actually wanted to deal with his family, but he’d said it wasn’t something he could escape.

“It’s gonna be worth it to see Antok pick a fight with Zarkon during Khatchu’tal.“ Keith responds, but even his normally vicious glee at the idea is dimmed. _Zarkon must be that guy_ , Katie figures, and although she doesn’t really know anything about the situation, it didn’t sound like the happy-if-inebriated gatherings she was used to.

She wishes, fiercely, that she could keep Keith with her just a couple of days longer; anything to make his time with his extended family shorter. But she knows she can’t, and Keith wouldn’t have backed down from the task anyway—he was stubborn like that.

“Text me constantly,“ she declares, putting her hands on her hips and thrusting out her chin. “You can’t be miserable if you’re texting me, it’s the law.”

For a beat, there’s just the susurrus of noise from their classmates, punctuated irregularly by a yell of excitement, with Keith’s wide-eyed gaze locks onto her face. The laugh that pulls itself out of him startles them both, but once it’s free Keith can’t seem to stop. He tries to hide the noise behind his hands, but it’s futile, and before Katie knows it he’s bent in half, gasping for breath.

Katie’s never heard him laugh like that, full-bodied and caught off guard. It feels strangely intimate, and if the raw edge to it is anything to go by she doesn’t think it happens that often. She fights to keep the heat rising in her face to a low simmer, wanting to turn away to give him privacy but unable to keep from drinking in the sight.

“Oh—oh wow, okay,“ he says once he’s gotten himself mostly under control. “I will, thanks.”

He straightens, wiping what might be imaginary tears from his eyes, the smile on his face broader than normal, crooked when it settles. His eyes are soft, warm, and Katie feels something thick rise in her throat.

Before she can say anything, there’s a honk; one she recognizes after months of waiting with Keith at the front gate. Antok has arrived in his black mini-van, ready to zoom Keith away to the airport, and from there across an ocean.

There’s going to be an ocean between them. Katie doesn’t know why that thought makes the lump in her throat so much bigger.

She isn’t paying enough attention to her surroundings, too focused on trying to figure out how to breathe through her feelings, when two strong arms wrap around her shoulders, pressing her face into a grey uniform epaulet.

“Thank you, Katie,“ Keith says, whisper soft and just for her. “Thank you.”

He disengages quickly, unable to meet her eyes, yet Katie knows that the angle of his ears might mean embarrassment but it doesn’t signal shame. He gives a short salute while walking backward, his mouth still crooked but no longer smiling, not entirely, before he spins on his heel and bolts for his car.

 _Shit._ Katie thinks, dumbstruck, heart racing. She can’t tell how warm her face is, but it has to be hot enough to cook an egg. She thinks she’s sweating.

_Shit._

_I like Keith Kogane._

x

The only person Katie knows who’s had any kind of relationship is Matt.

Correction: the only person _within readily available contacting range_ Katie knows who’s had any kind of relationship is Matt. Their parents had stopped in briefly while she’d been in friendship limbo with Keith, and then once right after the scene in the library—which she had told no one about—and then they were off again, touring conference halls across the country and to several orbital bases.

Shiro, although less likely to blatantly laugh at her or hold anything over her head as blackmail, is unfortunately out of reach except by ansible, and Katie doesn’t like the idea of asking for relationship advice across a lightyear of interstellar communication.

Which leaves Matt.

Who, when Katie finally musters up the courage to come and grovel ask him what to do about _liking_ someone, has one hand coated in cheese dust and his stomach out, body slumped so far down on the couch that she’s briefly surprised he hasn’t fallen off yet.

“Matt?“ She asks, unsure if he’s even _alive_. He doesn’t respond, so Katie shuffles forward, peering at him. If he’s a zombie she’s gotta be ready.

“Matt,“ she says, louder, and watches as his eyes drag from the TV to the vicinity of her face.

“Whzzp.“ He gurgles.

“I like someone.“ she says briskly. She’s had about three days to really consider her feelings and… this feels right. Katie likes Keith. It’s still weird to think, even just privately. Romance isn’t something that Katie had really considered, not in the Garrison, not in the Fleet afterward. Not at all, to be honest. She has been driven, and yeah, her life plan is structured to accommodate a lot of changes while heading in the same direction, but it’s strange, suddenly considering this second person.

However briefly, or however long, this isn’t a situation Katie thought she’d find herself in.

She’s knocked out of her reverie by a cheese puff smacking her in the forehead, and she reaches up to rub the dust away, attention back on Matt.

Matt, who’s staring at her like she told him she wanted to drop out of the Garrison to go live in the desert like some kind of reckless vagabond hobo.

“ _You_ **_like_ ** _someone?!_ “ He shrieks, jumping to his feet, coming toward her with powdery orange fingers outstretched. “My little Katie-bird _likes someone!_ “ He pinches her cheeks like one of their aunts, making her grimace, but he just coos and makes disgusting noises about how excited he is. Katie endures it, vowing to grab the wet wipes once he releases her face, and prays that whatever he has to say is worth _this_.

It takes fifteen minutes for Matt to calm down, another three for Katie to clean all the cheese dust off her face, and when she finally gets Matt back to the couch he’s practically vibrating out of his skin.

“Oh we have to call mom and dad, let them know!“ he crows, moving to stand again, but Katie grabs his wrist and drags him back down.

“Later,“ she says, rolling her eyes. “I only told you because you’ve been in a relationship for the longest out of anyone I know.”

Matt’s eyes almost visibly glaze over in adoration, his cheesy fingers coming up to press against his heart. “Allura is my queen,“ he sighs, eyelashes fluttering, and Katie would call him a big ham if it weren’t for the fact that he’d been the exact same way the first time he’d seen the Altean girl at the Garrison and tripped into a trashcan.

“Yes, she’s perfect, amazing, darling, _so cool_ ,“ she says, trying to move the conversation forward. It’d be another half hour of gushing if she let Matt really get started, “but how did you know you liked her as a person?”

Matt blinks the stars out of his eyes, attention falling back to Katie, searching. He finds something that makes his head tilt to the side and smile, and Katie narrows her eyes at him. _He better not pull anything, this is serious,_ she thinks.

“Well,“ he begins, leaning forward. “At first I just thought she was intimidating, because she’s so smart _and_ crazy strong, and even though she was still learning the Command ropes she took to it like a fish to water.“ He sighs through his nose, frowning.

“She made me feel like I was suffocating a lot, before I really realized it,“ he says, and it’s got a level of gravity that Katie isn’t used to hearing from him. It’s gone a minute later when he grins at her, saying, “A lot of that _palms sweaty, knees weak, mom’s spaghetti_ too, made me feel like I had pretzels for organs.”

Katie barely keeps herself from groaning. “How’d you tell her?“

“On accident,“ he says. “She flipped me during hand-to-hand combat training and I told her right there, flat on my back at her feet.”

 _Of course_ Katie sighs.

“So you just—say it?“ Katie asks. It feels like there should be more planning for something like that. It seems kind of like a big deal.

“I mean, there are no perfect times, right?“ Matt asks. And in that moment, despite the too-small shirt,  the cheese dust and the grungy socks on his feet, Katie thinks about how earnest her brother is, how sweet and kind, despite being a dork.

“Thanks, Matt,“ she says, leaning forward to hug him. She can feel him reciprocate while still trying to keep his cheese-hands to himself.

“No problem, Pidgeon.“

x

Despite having repeated it to herself over the course of the break, it is still a hard fact to re-assimilate. She _knows_ she has have to be the one to “set the scene“ and tell Keith when _she_ feels right, but the problem is that she isn’t sure if she would feel right if the _situation_ wasn’t right.

She worries over it all break, texting Keith just as often as he texts her. Their conversations don’t change beyond an increase in information regarding Keith’s relatives and several pictures of an apparently drunk Antok fighting an equally drunk Zarkon. Somehow Keith convinces his dad to take a picture after the brawl, and even though Antok isn’t smiling, he does have one hand raised in a peace sign to mirror Keith’s, and it’s probably the most hilarious thing Katie’s ever seen.

Keith returns a full head taller than Katie and complaining about getting his uniform tailored _again_ , since all his pants and jackets are too short.

Katie sits in flushing frustration about eight times a day, every slip of Keith’s soft stomach fur sending her blood pressure spiking.

She wants to be a little better than Matt, honestly she does, but every day Keith spends wearing a too small uniform is a day Katie gets closer to grabbing him by the collar and shaking him while she complains about how sexually frustrated he’s made her for almost _six months, does he understand what that means?! Six_ **_months!_ **

Katie prays for patience every day, but she’s pretty sure whoever might be listening is just laughing at her.

x

It will go down in history as the only flight sim Keith Kogane fails.

Katie is strapped into the copilot’s seat, carefully relaying data to Keith as they navigate the mock-asteroid field while searching for a lost Fleet vessel. It’s not a new simulation for them, but it is at a level of difficulty they’ve never experienced before, and Katie is paying special attention to the extraneous space debris that they have to weave through.

“Please slow down,“ she says for what is probably the eighth time, scanning her analytics tablet and then the main screen, just to be safe. The tablet is a replica of the data sent out by what would be a real ship’s radar, but the broad view doesn’t give the full scope of the minefield they’re traversing. It’s real looking, _frighteningly real looking_ , and it makes Katie’s stomach twist into knots.

“Trust me, Katie,“ Keith assures, slipping between two debris that are too large for comfort. It puts Katie’s teeth on edge, watching him, and even though she _does_ trust him, it’s still frightening. It’s hard to remember the sims aren’t real when the space rocks are so detailed Katie’s sure she can see skid marks and char from _another ship_ on them.

“Please, _slow down_ ,“ she repeats, her free hand gripping the armrest. Sweat beads on her brow and she swallows thickly.

" _Trust. Me._ I’m gonna get us— _there it is!_ “ Keith’s victory shout makes her jump, and if she thought Keith was going unreasonably fast beforehand it’s _nothing_ compared to the clip he puts them at once he spots the damaged ship, weaving between _pieces of other ships_ while barely looking at them.

Katie’s barely paying attention to either screen, too busy trying not to panic at the pace they’re going at, but what she _does_ see sends her into fight or flight mode.

And there’s no fighting the semi-truck sized asteroid hurtling toward them just outside of Keith’s field of vision.

“Keith stop!“ she shouts, scrambling at her harness. She has to get them out of here, she has to get them _away_ —

“I’ve almost got it!“ he says, laser-focused on the ship, and Katie can’t— _they’re going to get crushed, Keith is going to die—_

 _“No!“_ She screams, sliding free of her harness with a jerk. The analytics tablet falls to the floor, but she doesn’t notice, too busy lurching into Keith’s space and grabbing the main control, jerking it to the side in her haste.

The coarse adjustment is too abrupt for the ship—the sim jerks, spiraling to the right and up, right into a slower, larger asteroid. The cockpit shakes, red lights flashing warnings about oxygen levels and cabin impact before Katie is knocked to floor by the last violent aftershock of the sim ending.

“Katie what the hell?!“ Keith shouts, slipping out of his harness. He’s over her in a second, offering her his hand up, and she takes it, back aching from the harsh landing. “I had it!”

“You were going to hit an asteroid!“ she yells back, grabbing the collar of his flight suit. She shakes him, the panic from moments ago still rushing through her. “We were gonna die! You idiot, you can’t die before I tell you I like you!”

“You hit an asteroid anyway!“ he yells, grabbing her hands. “And I wasn’t go—what?“ Katie sees the moment when what she said finally clicks, because his ears go back, forward, and then lopsided, eyes widening. In the red light of the cockpit Katie can watch his eyes dilate for several seconds, focusing. “You like me?“ His voice is small, his previously tense grip slackening around her wrists. She can’t tell if he’s blushing, his hair still fluffed up from stress.

“I like you,“ she answers, nodding seriously. “I like you a lot. So I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t play fast and loose with your life in the sims.”

“Sure,“ Keith says, voice small. His ears are all wonky, and Katie thinks, _shit, how can someone’s buffering face be so cute._

They stand there for a few seconds, kind of holding each other while they wait for the instructors, when Keith mentions, “Katie? I think you broke the sim.”

Her gaze flicks to the main pilot’s chair, the circular control jerked aggressively to the side. Sparks shoot off from it at odd intervals, and Katie can see the cracked screen of the analytics tablet on the floor.

“Shit,“ she says, and then they’re both laughing, shaky, a little disbelieving but still happy. Keith’s lips press against her forehead, and this time when Katie tugs on Keith’s collar he doesn’t stop her. She reels him in, and it’s a little awkward, but when her lips meet his it’s warm, soft, and the fluttery thing in her chest finally takes flight.


End file.
